How to efficiently manage multiple job applications
You’re looking for a job? Cool — so are thousands of other people! The modern job market is incredibly competitive, and because more and more companies accept remote workers, you’re not just competing with people in your area, but with talent from all over the world.
The most popular job listings can get upwards of hundreds or thousands of replies. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google only ends up offering 0.77% of applicants a full-time job. You can’t just go after a single application anymore — you need to spread your bets.
Keeping up with lots of ongoing job applications can be a hassle, however. You need to write cover letters, plan calls and show up for interviews — it’s a lot of work. Setting up an efficient system for this won’t just save you loads of time — it’ll also give you a clear overview of your progress. So let’s do this.
Track your progress
There are so many things to keep track of when you’re looking for a job that it can quickly get overwhelming. Huntr is a total lifesaver — it’s the perfect way to create order from the chaos that is your job hunt.
Gone are the days of fiddling around in messy spreadsheets — Huntr is a much more effective way to organise your search. It’s set up as a kanban board, a multi-column lay-out that provides a clear overview and is optimised for productivity.
If you’ve used project management tools like Trello or Asana, the interface might look familiar — it’s a scrollable array of card-filled columns. Every card is a job you’re applying to, and every column is the current status of that application. They all start on the ‘Wishlist’ to the left of the board, and slowly — hopefully! — make their way to ‘Offer’ on the right. Check out a sample board here.
Found a great new opportunity? Quickly add it to Huntr with the Chrome extension. It’s an easy way to get started with filling up your board.
The modular cover letter
Applying for jobs means hours of staring at cover letters. It isn’t easy to write a great one — but at least you can be smart about it.
Start off with creating a reusable template for your letters. Split it up in a couple of sections — for example: a general introduction, your motivation to apply to the job, why you’re a great fit and a short round-up of your relevant skills. When starting to write a new letter, whip out your template and cut out everything that doesn’t make sense for the job you’re applying to. Make sure you properly customise it before sending it out, and triple-check for any errors — you want to avoid mentioning the wrong company.
I might be stating the obvious, but don’t forget to save all of your cover letters. Parts of it will come in handy when piecing together new ones, and they can be a great source of inspiration.
Smart strategising
Another big part of job hunting is actually finding jobs to apply to. You might already frequent a couple of job boards, but it’s important to note a powerful feature most of them have. LinkedIn Jobs, Monster, Indeed, AngelList Jobs and most others allow you to set up job alerts — a killer feature when used right.
First, you need to specify which cities you’re willing to work in. Then, simply set up a couple of alerts for keywords related to your profession. For example, if you’re a writer, you could go with ‘Editor’, ‘Journalist’, ‘Writer’ or ‘Content Strategist’. You’ll now automatically receive an email when relevant jobs are posted, so you can be one of the first to apply.
There you go — some tips to effectively tackle your job search. Also, don’t forget to frequently visit your favorite job board — it’ll definitely help.
